


Dance of the Earth

by aron_kristina



Category: Fantasia (1940)
Genre: Experimental, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aron_kristina/pseuds/aron_kristina
Summary: I'm not exactly sure what happened when I wrote this, but I had a great time and I hope you like the result.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dussek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dussek/gifts).



> I'm not exactly sure what happened when I wrote this, but I had a great time and I hope you like the result.

I. Vad är det för ett rike han kommer från?

In the beginning, before there were orchestras, before there were violins, before there were flutes, before there were even two stones banged together, there was song. The sound that created the world, the song that started it all, the scream of becoming. Sometimes things have to hurt, that is what creates reality. Sometimes things have to explode before they can be built up.

They say life started in a primordial soup, but we know better, we were there, at the whisper, the shout, the holy noise that called everything into being. It took a million years and it was done in an instant. Who is the creator? Who makes the sound of the universe?

 

II. En glömd musik

After the creation there was silence, the silence of a vacuum in the vastness of space, too cold for waves to travel. The silence lasted for eternity, for if there are no ears to hear, can it really be said that sound has been made? When does sound become sound, when generated or when interpreted? Don’t ask us, we’re not philosophers.

An infinity passed before there were even mortal creatures to make holy noise. Voice, then rhythm, after that flutes, musical instruments that no one living even remembers, beats and harmonies lost to the time. String instruments, woodwind, brass, harps. Symphony orchestras. Electricity. Or maybe they happened at the same time.

Is music forgotten when all that comes after it carries a seed of it inside? Nothing is ever new, everything created is inspired by what came before. Either no inspiration is divine or all inspiration is. The difference lies in how you see things, and where you stand when you look at them, a shift in viewpoint. The harmonies and melodies change, but it’s all echoes of the Creation of all things.

 

III. Vem spelar på en pipa?

Some worship organised sound waves like gods. Some others consider it the most important thing in the world. Others still considered it a pleasant distraction. There are those who are indifferent. The ones who hate it are hopefully few. But the truth is that all sound is holy. Humans are limited, humans with their hearing range, subsonic, infrasonic, ultrasonic, supersonic. The difference is in perception, not reality. And what some perceive as white noise, others hear as the most exquisite emotion made waveform. There are different ways of organizing things.

Who is the composer? Who is the conductor? Who makes interpretation, knows the flute’s hidden word? Are these even the right questions? The limitations of the human brain (frequently considered innumerous) makes it incapable of understanding the full range of sound, and perhaps also incapable of answering the most important questions. There are theories, and they range from all seeing, omnipotent god to creator who after creation went away (somewhere else, maybe back into the silence) to chaos theory and random coincidence. Could coincidence really create the perfection that is 331,12 hertz? Perhaps it can. Perhaps it is not for us to know.

 

IV. I herdekappa går en gud förklädd

Of course, all this is just speculation. The music that created the universe cannot be heard. There is maybe an inkling sometimes in the music created by mortals. A chord progression, a melody, an exactitude of rhythm, the heartbeat of a beloved thought dead. The merest hint of the Musica Universalis. A glimpse of the eternal. A taste of god seen by the cochlear nerve. The breakdown of the neat categories between divine and mundane, mind, body, soul. The dissolution of senses, the emotional overload that breaks down and builds up and breaks down again.

There are times when humans believe they feel the silence. They think they can hear the silence, because they do not know what true silence is. They do not understand that their bodies create sonatas, every cell working for a common goal, a dance that continues through life, all of them unique, all of them the same. To live is to make music. To live is to be music. Existence can never be silent. Only vacuum is silent. Only the dead make no noise.

If humans are created in the image of god then god must be pure, overwhelming noise, Vox Dei turned up to eleven. The sound that is so big it can no longer be heard, felt, understood. It defies what humans can imagine.

Do we vibrate or does the universe vibrate around us?

 

V. Helgad mark

You need a lot of space for good resonance. An atom is more than 99% emptiness. This is not because of chance.

Of course, the space inside an atom does not actually conduct sound, because there is nothing in there to conduct it, and anyway, the soundwaves are too big. Still, it works, and we’ll just say it’s because of quantum, which is just another way to say magic.

(Quantum is a way of describing things human minds are not quite capable of comprehending. It describes things in numbers and probability and is the most exact way of describing the universe in a basically very inexact way.)

 

VI. Toner av kristall

Movement is music made flesh. From the slow movement of mountains building and eroding to the quick movement to the way Escherichia coli doubles its numbers in twenty minutes. Life does not have to be nice to be beautiful. Movement does not have to be graceful to be holy.

Everything is based on movement. The inner (and outer) workings of the universe at their own speed and nothing can be done about it. Order is slowly and steadily destroyed, and it may not be nice or beautiful, graceful or holy, but it is true.

 

VII. Där döden förlorar sin makt

In the end, when there are no more electricity, not more symphony orchestras, no more flutes, no rocks to tap, when there is no one left to raise their voice in praise, when all matter has become energy and all energy has spread out so thin it doesn’t exist anymore, then will come the true silence, the silence so absolute it is impossible to imagine. To even start to imagine is to go insane. We are not created for such things.

From this silence will grow the scream that creates the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Rite of Spring (the one with the dinosaurs in Fantasia).
> 
> The subtitles are from God in Disguise (Förklädd Gud) with text by Hjalmar Gullberg and music by Lars-Erik Larsson. The text was written in 1933, and the music was commisioned by the Swedish Radio and was performed for the first time 1940. The first recited part was not part of the 1933 poem but added for the first performance as a protest against fascism and the war. 
> 
> Translations:  
> I. From out what unknown portal took he his way?  
> II. A world of music vanished  
> III. Who breathes an air in season?  
> IV. A god goes hid in shepherd’s plain attire  
> V. Hallowed soil  
> VI. Crystal lays  
> VII. Where Death is deprived of his power
> 
> There's also a quote in part III: Who makes interpretation, knows the flute’s hidden word?
> 
> These aren't literal translations but rather the corresponding lines in the translated poem, but it works well enough :p I recommend listening to the entire work, it's very beautiful. And if you haven't seen Fantasia recently I also recommend a rewatch (or first watch).


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